This invention relates to diamond growth.
Various methods have been proposed and tried for growing diamond on diamond seed crystals by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) using gaseous carbon compounds such as hydrocarbons or carbon monoxide. The gaseous compound can be produced from a liquid carbon compound such as an alcohol or acetone. The gaseous carbon compounds may be decomposed by various methods including the use of heat and radio frequency (RF) energy, and also by means of microwave energy. Much of the material which is grown by these prior art methods is diamond-like rather than crystalline diamond.
An article entitled "Diamond Synthesis from Gas Phase in Microwave Plasma" by M. Kamo et al, Journal of Crystal Growth 62 (1983) 642 to 644 describes preliminary results of a study involving crystalline diamond growth on a non-diamond substrate using a gaseous mixture of hydrogen and methane under microwave glow discharge conditions. The diamond growth took place on silicon wafers supported by an alumina basket.